Seemingly discrete struggles over the conditions of university life have erupted around the world within the past year. These struggles share certain commonalities: outrage over precarious and exploitative conditions, the occupation of university spaces, and goals of reclaiming education from state and corporate interests. It is becoming increasingly apparent that recent struggles over the university are not merely discrete events. They express a wider collective desire for direct control over the means of production and forms of life; a desire to create relationships of learning, collaboration, and innovation beyond the university’s attempts to quantify and discipline them...

Beneath the University, the Commons is generously sponsored by: UMN Student Activities Grants Initiative, UMN Graduate and Professional Student Association, Professor Richard Leppert, and the the following University of Minnesota Departments: Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, English, African American Studies, American Studies, Asian Languages and Literature, French and Italian, Sociology, Political Science, Philosophy, Geography, Writing Studies, and German, Scandinavian, and Dutch.